Career CFO vents her frustration over business, human capital, economics, social environment, culture, politics, and everything else; but always with a monetary twist

September 2013 posts

September 30, 2013

"A grunting, crunching ballet of repressed homoeroticism, football... The exaggerated breadth of the shoulders, the masked eradication of facial personality, the emphasis on contact-vs.-avoidance-of-contact. The gains in terms of penetration and resistance. The tight pants that accentuate the gluteals and hamstrings and what look for all the world like codpieces. The gradual slow shift of venue to 'artificial surface,' 'artificial turf...' And have a look at these men whacking each other's asses after a play... Football is pure homophobically repressed nancy-ism..."

September 28, 2013

A knack for making small talk is a valuable social skill. Only when we speak to people who are close to us (family, friends, coworkers), or completely transient (sales people, customer service reps), we can direct a conversation straight to the subject matter. And it's not a simple following the polite protocol either: The opening banter became a custom pretty much in all cultures because it is natural for most humans.

Barely a handful of people have absolutely no psychological barriers regarding social interactions and feel comfortable in any environment. The rest of us can always use some warming-up, some beating-around-the-bush. It is necessary for all parties involved because it lets us step over the initial awkwardness. While it helps a lot in private communications, in business it's simply mandatory.

One must always keep in mind, though, that the diapason of topics acceptable for small talk is not that broad. And it varies depending on your audience. The idea is that it should be something trivial enough for the person on the other side of the conversation to find an easy response. That is why, sports in general and football in particular is the natural choice for the heterosexual-male crowd: they are on common ground there, even if they root for different teams. Female execs, such as myself, have no choice but to familiarize themselves with the subject of football in order to keep up with their male peers.

Do you remember Mike Nichols's The Birdcage? The hilarious small-talk lesson aka "How about those Dolphins?" moment? When prepping his partner (Nathan Lane) for the meeting with an ultra-conservative right-wing politician, the South Beach cabaret owner (Robin Williams) goes straight to the subject of Miami Dolphins - the most natural ground-softening topic for a white male chauvinist. Conversely, when you talk with a homosexual men, you will be better off discussing Broadway's latest Tennessee Williams starring Zachary Quinto.

The pervasive demands of political correctness made the small-talk "safety" into a concern. Many topics of common interest for the majority of people are considered absolute taboos - politics and religion are the first on the list. Some issues, while not completely prohibited, are still qualified as "dangerous territory." Nowadays, people rarely ask the kids-and-family questions - they fear the possibility of opening a can of worms: divorces, adoptions, sexual orientation, stands on the women's choice, population issues, autism, etc.

Entertainment used to be a relatively safe harbor, especially television. But there is too much of it now: some programs cater to millions, while others are intended for relatively small audiences. It's never guaranteed that you will find mutual cultural interests with some new business acquaintance. So, many people avoid it.

Yet, the WEATHER is somehow still the first thing that pops out of everyone's mouth - on the phone, when shaking hands in the meetings, after ordering food at business lunches, and around the proverbial water cooler. People still think that because we are all exposed to atmospheric conditions it's an easy topic.

Well, I think it stopped being a "safe" topic long time ago.

It's September 28th in NYC (it's in the NORTH-east, in case you didn't know), yet it's 74 fucking degrees outside! The forecast indicates that it will be 79 on Wednesday and 80 on Thursday! And it's not like the air is summary. No, it's the unbarricaded UV rays - so hot, they fry the Earth. (And the fucking UN's environmental commission just published a report yesterday saying how it's now scientifically proven that humans are responsible for "at least" 50% of the global warming!) I am unpleasantly aware of this sun while walking down Broadway in the Financial District. Yet, the guy walking right in front of me turns to his girl and says, "What a gorgeous day!" Are you kidding me? I want to kick him; I want to swing my handbag real hard and land it on his head! No sir, it's not a safe topic for me.

But there is more: Nowadays, it seems to me that everyone is desperately clutching to conversations about the weather out of fear that they may betray their dissatisfaction with Life; not just to the others, but to themselves. Moreover, they rather blame the weather for the way they feel than face the truth. I came to this realization when I noticed that people started resorting to the "weather talks" even when there is no need for any ice-breaking.

At work I'm constantly exposed to people: they call, I call; I have internal and external meetings, lunches, dinners; people keep their office doors opened and you cannot help but overhear their conversations. And it's all day long: "How's the weather over there?" and "It's very cloudy today, but they promise a lot of sunshine tomorrow!" or "Aw, the mornings are getting chillier - I will have to get my coats out." Why the fuck everyone wants it to be warm and sunny all the time? Because that's going to make them feel better? We are supposed to have four seasons!

If you are as bitchy as I am, you can try to see what happens when you stall the weather talk and get real for a hot second. In the middle of a wonderfully gloomy day, after an unpleasant marketing meeting, one exec deliberately crossed the hall from her office to mine only to say, "Oh, my God! This weather really brings me down!" My response was: "Yes, life is depressing, and sunny days are scary to me." She acted literally like a fish out of the water - her mouth silently opened and then closed; she turned on her hills and swam away. Hopefully she will think about it before blabbering about weather next time, but I'm not holding my breath.

September 25, 2013

In case you didn't hear, during the past 4-5 days BlackBerry Ltd. (formerly known as Research in Motion, or RIM) has announced that they (1) have generated a $1 billion loss (!) in the last fiscal quarter alone; (2) plan to lay off 4,500 "staffers" (35% of the company's employees); (3) will become private again if the intended $9/share stock buy-out by a Canadian hedge fund Fairfax Financial goes through.

So, after allowing a healthy company (modest $300 million volume in 2002-2003; respectable and still okay $3 billion before the introduction of the iPhone in 2007) to get unmanageably huge ($20 billion in 2011), the mastodon got crushed under its own weight.

Well, first of all: Dah! I thought it was obvious to everyone that sleek iPhones will keep pushing BlackBerries into the proverbial corner - when you stop being "the cutting edge," you can only go this far on the price incentives. In fact, not only iPhones, but also Google's Androids and Microsoft's Windows Phones surpassed BlackBerry's devices in their service capacities.

I do have some questions, though, regarding the etiology of this grand failure.

How did the company get so stagnated in less than 30 years since it was formed and mere 14 years since it introduced its first email pager? Where were all those Ivy-League graduates who were hired to manage innovations, operations, marketing, finance and human resources? Where were the $700/hour consultants and public accountants? What did they do with all those expensive Business Analytics and Performance Indicators organized into pretty dashboards? Why didn't they regroup, contract, reinvent, restructure?

I'll tell you where and why? The dumb asses, greedily preoccupied with the value of their personal stock options, were staring at the market ticker instead.

When a company grows with an exponentially increasing speed, like cancer, the sensible management by capable people becomes impossible, simply because their supply is too short. To fill the gaps, a trivial approach is adopted, i.e. hiring according to the laundry list of garden-variety requirements. Unfortunately, conceptual thinking and understanding of fundamental principles cannot be substituted by expensive diplomas, high test scores, and flowery resumes. If you go the standard route, all you get is a bunch of highly-presentable empty suits with steely eyes, strong voices, unsubstantiated self-confidence, and not a single original thought in their heads. Thus, the entrepreneurial brilliance that made the company possible in the first place completely disappears.

Real business is not a multiple-choice test or a text-book case study. It's far too dynamic and complicated to be approached with basic school techniques, no matter how ivy the school is. And the world doesn't slow down for a creature too big to coordinate its own movements. There are unproven theories that giant dinosaurs, such as Stegosaurus, had a "second brain" - an additional nervous center responsible for the movement of their hind legs and tails. Makes sense to me, because an ogre with no brain power at all, is not able to coordinate any of his movements; let alone quickly react to changes around it.

Even more important question for me personally is why wouldn't people let this diseased monster die its very natural, evolutionary death of being stomped out by the stronger competitors? Why pour almost $5 billion into this carcass? Has Fairfax Financial been bribed by the Canadian government into preventing even larger job losses? Did US Treasury, so keen on protecting the stock-market investors, participate in this scheme as well? Unless the hedge fund is seating on some miraculous technological break-through, politics is the only explanation I can come up with for this waste of money.

Maybe if BlackBerry were let to die, the other members of the dinosaur herd would've taken notice and treated their gigantism with some surgical partitioning. Maybe they would've even stopped hiring according to the bullshit diploma-ranking and personal connections and started looking for the real spark of an intellect in their management. Alas, we probably will never know.

September 16, 2013

It's one thing to sit in front of a computer screen and intellectualize about the irreversible deterioration of financial and social climates and the necessity for people to face the truth about the new economic reality. It's a completely different thing to get your ass off the chair, pack your bags with some walking and hiking footwear, go away from your stomping grounds, and observe downhill changes in distant places. Even without an elaborate analysis of economic indices you can pick up a lot of signals along the way.

It wasn't intentional (after all, the primary purpose of my traveling was leisure), but the states I visited represented an interesting mix: Washington, the state with the second highest average income of $41.5K; Oregon - the sixth lowest with $30.3K; and California - the fourth lowest with $29.8K (all the wealth of Silicon Valley moguls, Napa Valley nabobs, and Malibu celebrities cannot outweigh the endless number of unemployed and barely employed aspiring creative types). It's like I journeyed down the geographical and fiscal routes. A year ago I stopped in most of the same places, so it was unavoidable for my mind to register the most apparent changes.

Seattle is a very special city. Last year I summarized my impressions of it as calm and cool. It has this aura of serenity about it. Yet, the place gave birth to Grunge (aka Seattle sound) - that's like fucking awesome, man. The city's most prominent artist is the master of chilled glass flow - world-renown Dale Chihully. Even local famous graves are the coolest: Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee. It's not Bangkok (#1 travel destination this year), but there are plenty of tourists here, especially in and around the iconic Pike Place market and the Space Needle. Many of these people are about to board cruise liners and explore the even crisper climates of Alaska.

The business person in me associates Seattle with, what I call, Zen entrepreneurship: they start small, but with great aspirations. Some succeed in building long-lasting local fixtures, reassuringly there for you every time you come - like Jack's Fish Spot that has been serving the best crab in the world at Pike Place Market for over 30 years. Others go on to materialize their national and international ambitions: The metropolitan Seattle is birthplace and still home to the headquarters of Nordstrom, Starbucks, Sur La Table, COSTCO, Amazon, Expedia, and Blue Nile among others.

All that happened in the relatively recent past. Now, the enterprising endeavors here are marked by a greater than ever sense of risk and uncertainty, and the new businesses mostly struggle to stay afloat as long as they can.

Thanks to a recommendation from a local insider, I ventured into Ballard (Seattle's Williamsburg) with the specific purpose of visiting a cutting-edge, connoisseur-targeted Slate Coffee Roasters run by Chelsea Walker, who shares the company's ownership with her brother and mother. (Her entrepreneurship and business model deserve a dedicated post , which will be coming soon.) Chelsea served us her signature Deconstructed Espresso and chocolate-covered orange slices, which were beyond outstanding - they were a revelation. And it is sad that I was urged to go to Slate "like right now," because "it will not necessarily be here next time around." And I'm not all that surprised that the business is hurting: The best advertising for the quality of their roasts is right there, in a cup prepared by an expert barista. However, you can only go this far on word of mouth (even if it's powered by Yelp), and the location is way out of the main thoroughfares, in a residential area that doesn't look affluent at all.

To tell you the truth, this time around the whole city looked to me less appealing, more haggard. Even Pike Place market didn't feel too bustling - with fewer vendors and significantly reduced numbers of transactions. Climbing onto Capitol Hill on Friday (!), you experience an eerie sensation of emptiness: there are barely any people around and most establishments, including the small art galleries, are open only for a few hours a day; so, in the early afternoon, they are either already closed or not yet open. And walking only a few blocks up from the posh corner of Pine St. & 6th Ave. towards Broadway, I'm sorry to say, is an experience that evokes the documentary footage of Trenton, NJ. It's just heartbreaking.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but there is no doubt in my mind that, while Stephenie Meyer single-handedly destroyed the already low aesthetic values of at least two young generations, the movies based on her Twilight series are most definitely responsible for the economic well-being of the upper regions of the Olympic Peninsula. Port Angeles, Forks, La Push, and the magical rainforests of the area are busy with fans trying to relive Bella-Edward-Jacob "thrills" and the genuine nature-lovers who have to see for themselves that this national treasure is for real and not CGI'ed by the filmmakers (it is real!): So, the ferries are packed, the inns are booked, RV parks are full, the backpackers are checking into the campgrounds, cyclists are devouring Thriftway's garlic bread, espressos are flowing, and by 8 pm the Mexican eatery with a pinned above the register photo of Robert Pattison embracing the staff is out of all proteins. Good for them! Since the monster has been unleashed from the cultural hell anyway, I hope local small-business owners milk this cash cow as long as they can.

You head 200 miles further down the coast to Cannon Beach, OR (via never prosperous Aberdeen, WA) and the picture changes completely. Even its reputation as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, the famous sand-castle competition, and the high popularity with the movie-location scouts are not able to create sufficient pull to attract more tourists - the place's sole source of revenues. There are simply less people who can afford to travel now, and those who can, would rather go to more buzz-worthy places. While the efforts of Cannon Beach's Chamber of Commerce to bar big-name hotels, stores, and restaurants out of the area do protect local businesses from the hard-core competition, nothing can be done about the evaporating bank balances. And the chain reaction is unavoidable: In the absence of sufficient revenues, the hospitality proprietors start cutting corners and provide the still-paying guests with shabbier living spaces and lower quality food, thus drastically reducing the plausibility of customer retention. I was glad our plans called just for an overnight stay there.

To my sensibilities, Portland, OR is a paradox. In comparison, let's say, to Seattle, it's simultaneously simpler and more pretentious. On one hand, there are no passing-through cruises or world-famous attraction icons and, therefore, less touristy hustle. (Even though, the hotel I stayed in, the famous Heathman with its library of over 2000 autographed books, is definitely getting a fresh influx of new tourists, thanks to another set of the literally trash soon to crawl onto the silver screen, Fifty Shades of Grey - what with the book's multiple seedy scenes actually taking place in one of this wonderful (truly!) establishment's suites.) On the other hand, Portland has an unmistakable independent spirit and everything that comes with it - both good and bad.

The city counts the bona fide indie filmmaker Gus Van Sant and the late indie-rock singer-songwriter Elliott Smith among its local celebrities, even though neither was born here. The enterprising here is more of a boutique nature as well: there are definitely less Starbucks per capita than in other prominent cities, but you can find a small coffee shop practically everywhere you turn.

There are plenty of tiny start-ups here, including chic eateries, and, of course, they are struggling. One of the ways the survival efforts manifest themselves here is the "open to close" trend, which for someone from the city that never sleeps and has famous restaurants open until 2 am seemed novel and strange. (And fucking annoying, since we actually had to turn away from closed doors of establishments that were supposed to be open according to their posted hours of operation). At the same time, I have to admit that it does save a chunk of money if you shut down an empty store or a restaurant - turning off the equipment, making all employees clock out, etc. It's possible that we saw the future there.

Unfortunately, the flip side of the indie culture is the profusion of hipsters. Fred Armisen can continue telling everyone that Portlandia could've been placed anywhere, but I'm not convinced - it couldn't, not even in Brooklyn. The hipster details are too specifically Portland, including the lightless intersections conundrum.

Uninitiated people associate the hipster phenomenon with a certain level of affluence. And in a lot of cases that's correct. But it's also a good cover up for border-line destitute situations. The difference is not easy to recognize, though. You may pass two people on the street looking exactly the same to an untrained eye: skinny jeans, boots, checkered shirt, green or brown hoody, cross-body messenger bag, glasses, long scarf, carefully disordered hair - you know what I'm talking about. It takes the knowledgeable eye of a fashion devotee to distinguish an $800 Japanese hoodie from a $60 Urban Outfitters' one, or a $10 Kohl's bargain.

Here, in Portland, the balance between hipsters with steady income and those who have lost their jobs and rentals a while ago seems to be tipping towards a larger percentage of impoverished individuals. They feed the increasing contingent of pervasive drunks and bums, which are a big problem and the primary concern of the local law enforcement. It is obvious to the naked eye that in one year the situation got worse - now they are everywhere.

Eureka, CA is a small town (population 27K) with its one side overlooking the ocean and the other side bordering Humboldt State Park, the home of the Pacific Northwest Redwood giants. It has campuses of two higher education institutions - College of the Redwoods and Humboldt State University, whose professors and students contribute into the consumer pool. However, the main attraction here is the proximity to the Trees and, just like in Cannon Beach, Eureka's economy relies on tourism. And, just like in Cannon Beach, it doesn't look too good.

The town's only member of the Select Registry of North American Distinguished Inns, Carter House Inn has been considered a premium B&B for almost 30 years, and last year we found our accommodations here pleasantly quaint. I remember the place was practically full and even at 11 pm (late by the local standards) the lobby was busy with guests partaking in complementary tea-and-cookies service.

This year, our arrival coincided with a police drug bust: At the entrance, I literally had to give way to four cops in rubber gloves removing a resisting female junkie from the premises. As bizarre as that scene was, I don't think anybody can blame the inn's severe underbooking on it. It seemed eerily empty. Again, signs of the funds' shortage could be clearly seen: There is obviously not enough money even to clean, let alone repair or replace, the soiled or chipped furniture and fixtures. And now, all chamber-maid staff is let off before 2 pm. So, if you linger in your room in the morning trying to clear your backlog of emails, there will be no housekeeping for you.

Of course, no economic troubles can stop people from coming to the Redwoods for a glimpse at what Earth should've looked like, but the preferences presently lie with camping and RV-renting rather than with $300 a night inns that don't live up to their rates.

If I could avoid going to San Francisco I would, but it was the easiest route for my return trip. Traveling through that city is like visiting a third-world country, or going back in time to the area's gold-rush origins. We talk a lot about the national phenomenon of a disappearing middle class, but out there it had vanished some time ago: There is a handful of incredibly rich high-tech tycoons, and everyone else is barely getting by, or worse - San Francisco has the second-highest concentration of homeless people per capita in the country (first place belongs to Los Angeles).

At this point, the monetary disparity has started taking its toll on the city's social atmosphere. I don't like geographical generalizations: for instance, not everyone in New York is pushy. And my experience shows that everywhere you go in the world, the local population represents your regular bag of mixed nuts: assholes, bullies, helpful individuals, etc. But in San Francisco, it seems like most people, regardless of their personalities, are covered by some sheen of general nastiness.

And that, my friends, is pure social science: Sour economies always result in the deterioration of social values, civil discord, harder policing, and so on, and so forth. We live in a very large country and things develop at different rates depending on the specific area. But eventually the downturn will catch up with the 99.9% everywhere.

September 09, 2013

Oh, yeah? What shows did Jack the Ripper watch? Did Christie have cable? No. The desire to act the way these killers do is already in there. We breed them - society, not television. And if it wasn't television in this case it would be something else - brown hair, blue eyes..."

September 05, 2013

No, it's not an error in the title of this post - I meant what I wrote. 30 is not the new 20, even though some women in their late 20s and early 30s look like high schoolers.

At 20, our poor over-achieving and uber-pepped children are still tainted by their immediate adults' high expectations; their psyche is all screwed up by fear of failure, which results in terrible confidence and self-worth issues. No matter what some psychologists say about "infantilism," I firmly believe that these are the main reasons why the majority of the 50 million people in their 20s today appear somewhat stunted in their life cycle. It's our fault.

Far from all, but definitely the best ones, after 5-10 years of struggling through all the psychological and social tribulations their parents, guardians, and the society created for them, come out of it knowing exactly what they want from their lives; acting with more maturity and confidence than any 20-year-old could've possibly mastered, even in "the good old times." (When were they that good for children and young people? I have no fucking clue!) Thus, at its best, the new 30 is something we've never seen before: it is a unique combination of teenage physical youthfulness and adult mental toughness. These 30-year-olds didn't waste their twenties (no matter what the bitter over-the-hill farts say), they used it to get better and free themselves from the bullshit that dragged them back. The ages-old statistical measurements concerning the attainment of stations of life simply don't apply to them, and I can't believe that some esteemed sociologists and psychologists still use them.

This brings us to tennis as a perfect example of this phenomenon. For the first time in the US Open history, three out of four ladies advanced to the semifinals are over 30: Serena Williams (will turn 32 in exactly three weeks), Li Na (31), and Flavia Pennetta (31). If 30-year-old quarter-finalist Daniela Hantuchova overcame Victoria Azarenka (ranked #2 in the world), it would be a 30+ quartet. Azarenka herself, at 24, is not that overwhelmingly young either - she turned pro 10 years ago. And it's not like the three older women played in their "age group" - they went through a bunch of much younger competitors on their way to the semis.

It's remarkable, especially considering that this sport fairly recently saw 16 to 18-year-olds winning multiple Grand Slams in a row (Martina Hingis with a career slam at age 17 in 1997 comes to mind). Now, there is not a single teenager among the top 30 ranked players on both men's and women's sides. Serena Williams after all ups and downs of her, still remarkable, twenties last year won Wimbledon, the US Open, and two Olympic Golds. She played more matches this year than she ever played in her life before (reaching #1 rank) and already pocketed the French Open title.

According to the contemporary medical science, theoretically speaking, these 30-year-young people will have 10 years longer to live than we do. So, if we don't completely destroy the environment, the economy, and the democracy, people in their 30s will have plenty of time to at least try to realize their potentials and can consider their twenties as formative years. If we let them to survive, they will look 35 at 50 and continue rocking on well into their 80s.